Co-requisite Remediation: When it’s likely to work

A recent post dealt with the “CCA” (Complete College America) obsession with ‘corequisite remediation’.  In case you are not familiar with what the method involves, here is my synopsis:

Co-requisite remediation involves the student enrolling in both a credit course and a course that provides remediation, concurrently.  The method could be called ‘simultaneous’ remediation, since students are dealing with both the credit course and the remedial course concurrently.

The co-requisite models are a reaction to the sequential remediation done in the traditional models.  For mathematics, some colleges have from two to five remedial courses in front of the typical college course (college algebra, pre-calculus, or similar level).  The logic of exponential attrition points out the flaws in a long sequence (see https://www.devmathrevival.net/?p=1685 for a story on that).

The co-requisite models in use vary in the details, especially in terms of the degree of effort in remediation … some involve 1 credit (1 hour per week) in remedial work, others do more.  Some models involve adding this class time to the course by creating special sections that meet 5 or 6 hours per week instead of 4.

I do not have a basic disagreement with the idea of co-requisite remediation.  Our work in the New Life Project included these ideas from the start; we called it ‘just-in-time remediation’; this emphasis resulted in us not including any course before the Mathematical Literacy course.

The problem is the presumption that co-requisite remediation can serve all or almost all students.  For open-door institutions such as community colleges, we are entrusted with the goal of supporting upward mobility for people who might otherwise be blocked … including the portion needing remediation.  The issue is this:

For what levels of ‘remediation need’ is the co-requisite model appropriate?

No research exists on this question, nor am I aware of anybody working on it.  The CCA work, like “NCAT” (National Center for Academic Transformation) does not generally conduct research on their models.  NCAT actually did some, though the authors tended to be NCAT employees.  The CCA is taking anecdotal information about a new method and distributing it as ‘evidence’ that something works; I see that as a very dangerous tool, which we must resist.

However, there is no doubt that co-requisite remediation has the potential to be a very effective solution for some students in some situations.  Here is my attempt at defining the work space for the research question:  Which students benefit from co-requisite remediation?

Matching students to remediation model:

Here is the same information as text (in case you can’t read the image above):

The 3 by 3 grid is the problem space; within each, I have placed my hypotheses about the best remediation model (with the goal of minimizing the number of remedial courses for each student).

As you probably know, advocates like CCA have been very effective … some states have adopted policies that force extensive use of co-requisite remediation “based on the data”.  Of course the data shows positive outcomes; that happens with almost all reasonably good ideas, just because there is a good chance of the right students being there, and because of the halo and placebo factors.

What we need is some direct research on whether co-requisite remediation works for each type of student (like the 9 types I describe above).  We need science to guide our work, not politics directing it.

 
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Students Don’t Do Optional … or Options

In the Achieving the Dream (AtD) ‘world’, the phrase “Students do not do optional” is used as a message to colleges that policy and program decisions need to reflect what we believe students ought to do — if it’s a helpful thing, making it optional often means that the students who need it the most will not do it.  I tried something in my class that suggests a slightly different idea.

For the past two years, I have ‘required’ (assigned points) students to connect with a help location at the college.  The idea was that students need to know — before they think they need it — where they can get help for their math class.  I allow days for this — usually, until the 4th class day.

Until this semester, I provided students with options for how to complete this required activity.

• my office hours
• the college’s “Learning Commons” (tutoring center)
• the college’s library tutoring (also staffed by the tutoring center)
• special programs tutoring (like TRIO)

Typically, I would have about 70% of students complete this ‘connect with help’ activity; most of the struggling students were in the 30% who did not.  Some of these students eventually found the help.

This semester, I tried a revision to this connect with help activity.  I provided students the following choice(s):

1. the college’s “Learning Commons” (tutoring center)

The result?  I have 100% completion for this activity.  All active students have completed the activity, and most of these did it right away.

This is summer semester, and “summer is different” (though it’s difficult to quantify how different).  However, the results suggest that the existence of options creates barriers for some of our students.  We have evidence that this problem exists within the content of a mathematics class — when we tell students that we are covering multiple methods (or concepts) for the same type of problems, some students struggle due to the existence of a choice.  [For those who are curious, you may wonder if students are not coming to my office hour — so far, I actually have more students coming to my office hours.  No apparent loss there.]

I think the basic question is this:

Given that choices (options or optional) creates some risk for some students, WHEN are there sufficient advantages to justify this risk?

If dealing with a choice has the potential for improving mathematical understanding, I will continue to place choices in front of my students.  We should resist the temptation to provide simple answers when students struggle with mathematics; the process working (learning) depends upon the learner navigating through choices and dealing with some ambiguity. On the other hand, when the choices deal with something non-mathematical, we should be very careful before imposing the choice on students.

Some people might be thinking “So, it’s okay for us to be rigid and not-flexible” in dealing with students.  That is NOT what I am saying.  If one of my students gave me a valid rationale for why they could not do the ‘one option’, I would offer them an equivalent process.  Our rigidity needs to be invested in what is important to us; I would hope that the important stuff is something related to “understanding mathematics” (though we don’t all agree on what that means).

I would suggest that the AtD phrase be modified slightly:

Options will cause difficulties for some students.  Allow options when this provides enough advantages to students.

We usually try to be helpful to students, and part of this is a tendency to provide students with options. Putting choices in front of students is not always a good thing, so we need to be selective about when we put options in to our courses and procedures.

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Pathways … for the New General Education

We’ve been working over the past 5 years to develop new courses for our students.  Mathematical Literacy is the first new course, and is doing very well; Algebraic Literacy is the second course, and is just beginning to get ‘traction’.  To help our students, though, we need a new plan … especially for general education.

Take a look at this map:

The Michigan Transfer Agreement (MTA) is designed to improve the transfer of general education courses in Michigan.  The MTA requires one math course; students can use one of the 3 courses ‘in blue’: college algebra, quantitative reasoning, or introductory statistics.

Notice that students can meet their general education math requirement with one developmental course and then the MTA course … unless they need college algebra or pre-calculus.  We have embraced the pathways concept, with direct benefits to our students.

This is good news for students in Michigan.  I hope that other states will create similar structures.

 
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Math Lit, and Pathways for Faculty

On my bookshelf, I have copies of two of the best math books available today:  Math Lit (Almy & Foes) and Math Literacy (Sobecki & Mercer).  Here are cover images:

Three years ago, this course was not offered anywhere.  As of this month, we have over 40 colleges offering the class with over 160 sections; Mathematical Literacy is an alternative to a beginning algebra course.  With the hard work of faculty, support from their colleges, and wisdom of publishing companies, the New Life Project continues to make a difference in our profession.

The work continues; the next course to be developed is Algebraic Literacy.  This alternative to an intermediate algebra course offers similar advantages; take a look at the “Missing Link” presentation (https://www.devmathrevival.net/?page_id=1807) from last fall’s National Summit on Developmental Mathematics.

I am seeing this progress as part of the pathway for us — a pathway for mathematics faculty.  We are moving from an accidental collection of relatively isolated topics with little benefit to students … to a deliberate design of courses containing mathematics to be proud of, with content designed to help all of our students.

In the process of moving from the old to the new, we are on a pathway ourselves.  We can become inspired by the design, gain skills in teaching mathematics, and experience a course that connects meaningfully to students.  Instead of being seen as “the last course to take, the one that stands in the way of graduating”, we can provide courses that show benefits to students earlier in their program.  Many students will find our new courses enjoyable; they will leave with a more positive view of what mathematics is.

We are on the path that leads to a mirror, a mirror which says “We do important work, and students benefit; be proud!”  I hope to see many of you on this trail.

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